Where do you get your best ideas?

The erstwhile Dave Pollard alerts me to a "when and where do you get your best ideas" poll on the Idea Champions website. You can take part in the survey there, and add to the results. Thus far, people mostly get their best ideas when:

- brainstorming with others
- they are happy
- analysing a problem/opportunity
- reading books on their field
- walking

Good to see plenty of people adding "on the toilet" as an extra category too....

• Meanwhile, you can download a free chapter of Accidental Genius: revolutionize your thinking through private writing HERE on the Idea-Fisher blog.

• Read about Steven Johnson's creativity through database experiences in this essay in the New York Times

• And there is more interesting stuff on the Innovation Tools Weblog about creativity and thinking techniques, such as "rubberducking". As they put it, "The concept is quite simple: Explain your problem or challenge out loud to an inanimate object -- such as a rubber ducky or teddy bear -- or another person. In the process of explaining it out loud, you tend to clarify your thinking about it.

It's the talking that matters. Explaining your problem out loud is often enough to shake things loose in your brain, expose bad assumptions, and cause you to see things in a new way... Speaking out loud activates parts of your brain not accessed when you simply think. And even better, the act of explaining something gets you thinking in ways you might never have reached if you hadn't tried to talk through it."

Something to remember next time you are in the bath.....

Comments

[John]

I've heard that alternating between a hot sauna and a cold shower is supposed to work wonders. I've never had the nerve to try it though.

[Fatimah Saad]

I am new. Hope I can learn something from the others. My interest is in the family, social and culture around the world